Saturday, August 17, 2019. Chaco Canyon: Pueblo Bonito and Weatherill Cemetary

Can you find Pueblo Bonito on the map? Weatherill Cemetery isn't on the map, but it is between Pueblo Bonito and Pueblo del Arroyo.

This sign is at the trailhead to Pueblo Bonito.

The Pueblo Bonito site contains 600 rooms and buildings that were four stories high!

The walls contain windows, and circular openings that once held tree trunks used to hold up the ceilings in the dwellings.

See the large stone and small tree trunk that are used as a lintel above this window? There are NO trees in the canyon, or on the mesa tops that could have been used in the dwellings. Scientists say that the trees were cut fifty miles away and carried here. When this building was created between the years 800 - 1100, there were no machines to cut the trees down, or carry them fifty miles to the canyon.
ALL of the work was done with hand tools and physical labor! 

Pueblo Bonito was built near the cliffs. The builders knew that the cliff was unstable, so they used timber and rock to try to stabilize it. The cliff was called "Threatening Rock" and at some point it collapsed onto the side of Pueblo Bonito.

Here you can see how Threatening Rock fell onto Pueblo Bonito crushing the back wall of the dwellings.

This diagram shows how the building of Pueblo Bonito progressed over time.

Pueblo Bonito had a plaza in the center of the dwellings. You can see how big it was by looking at the people

See the wood in this part of the building? Some of the beams were used to add strength to the walls and some were used as ceiling beams.

It looks like this building had a basement, but these buildings were built a long time ago and when the people left around the year 1100, they were buried in sand.
Archeologists carefully removed the sand in some parts of the dwellings, so they could learn about the people who lived here.

All of the sites have these circular structures that archeologists call "Kivas". They think they were used as gathering, or ceremonial spaces. 

Over time, plants have grown up in the middle of this kiva making it difficult to see the structures in the middle of it.

One similarity between all the kivas is a stone bench along the wall. You can see the stone bench here as well as other structures in the  center of the kiva.

The trail to the Weatherill Cemetery begins at Pueblo Bonita.

Information about Richard Weatherill.

One of the sandstone layers in Chaco Canyon is very porous! This boulder was on the trail to the cemetery.

There is a log fence around the cemetery. 

The gravestone of Weatherill and a member of his family.